FEAR and Black & White 2 reviews

Branoic

PC Gamer magazine this month has lenghty reviews of both BW2 and FEAR.

BW2 got 70-something. This seems pretty much in line with the majority of online reviews. Seems the game is a bit of a let-down. Pity. Looks like I'll wait until its in the bargain bin to pick it up.

FEAR got 89% - a very respectable score. They said it was excellent, brilliant etc - but just a tad short of HL2. To be honest I've got the game so hyped in my mind at this stage I was expecting to see at least a 90% Ah well.

Tusky

Branoic wrote:

PC Gamer magazine this month has lenghty reviews of both BW2 and FEAR.

BW2 got 70-something. This seems pretty much in line with the majority of online reviews. Seems the game is a bit of a let-down. Pity. Looks like I'll wait until its in the bargain bin to pick it up.

FEAR got 89% - a very respectable score. They said it was excellent, brilliant etc - but just a tad short of HL2. To be honest I've got the game so hyped in my mind at this stage I was expecting to see at least a 90% Ah well.

surprised F.E.A.R didnt get higher. I was expecting mid 90s for it.

koneko

Eurogamer gave B&W2 6/10 IIRC
Don't think I'll be buying that one (and the first one got a bit repetitive anyway)

Really looking forward to F.E.A.R. though

Tusky

koneko wrote:

Eurogamer gave B&W2 6/10 IIRC
Don't think I'll be buying that one (and the first one got a bit repetitive anyway)

Really looking forward to F.E.A.R. though

I'll fear YOU. I dont know what I mean by that.

koneko

Tusky wrote:

I'll fear YOU. I dont know what I mean by that.

Tusky

koneko wrote:

I think that shall be my new chat up line. Well I never had an old one asuch...

Sand

surprised F.E.A.R didnt get higher. I was expecting mid 90s for it.

The reviewer made the point that the games first 5 hours are never improved upon...its just the same enemies, same challenge all the way through. Thats why he didnt give it 90+ which seems fair. Even in the demo, I was kinda less than impressed by the style of play the slo-mo encourages:

1)come round corner
2)slo-mo
3)kill 2-3 guys
4)step back around corner and wait for slo-mo bar to regenerate

And repeat steps 1-4 as many times as appropriate.

Dont get me wrong, Ill still buy it but its not a HL2 beater from what Ive seen.

DonkeyStyle \o/

I was curious to see what kind of review B&W2 would get... looking at the screenshots I was like "oh dear, looks like more of the same..."
Don't think I'll bother with it now.

Thrasher

Sand wrote:

Dont get me wrong, Ill still buy it but its not a HL2 beater from what Ive seen.

But the 20 hours of HL2 too short, apparently. (Whine, whine, whine).

I'm with you 100% of the way.

Steffano2002

Downloaded the F.E.A.R demo last and just played it there. My God it's SOOOO demanding! Even with everything at the minimum my PC struggled. I guess P4 2.2GHz, 1GB RAM and 128Mb 9500 PRO just isn't enough...

CombatCow

F.E.A.R is ****in awesome , go out and buy it and keep me in a job please lol


CC

savemejebus

really looking forward to fear, looks to have a pretty cool story as well as great gfx and action. can't wait to see the backstory clips on the Directors Edition, saw a few of the clips already and one 5 minute clip was better than the entire american remake of 'the ring' (not that thats too hard)

madrab

been playing b&w2 i really enjoy it (i also loved the first one) i love the way the towns can be built so easily, and they look sooo good

there are a few slightly awkward controls & framerate can change sometimes for no reason but i like it alot plus i have a fluffy tiger called stripey fluff (my gf named him)

Zombrex

Steffano2002 wrote:

Downloaded the F.E.A.R demo last and just played it there. My God it's SOOOO demanding! Even with everything at the minimum my PC struggled. I guess P4 2.2GHz, 1GB RAM and 128Mb 9500 PRO just isn't enough...

Try a ATI 850! Still is demanding ... which I don't really get considering it looks sh*t compared to Doom 3 or HL2 .. the bit in the demo where you are in the hallway, the textures on the walls look worse than Max Payne 1 (which had a similar style level) and the rooms are empty and box looking, none of the dirt and little touches that made the HL2 levels come alive.

TBH not surprise it got 89% rather than a high 90s score, it seems very over hyped for what it actually was based on the demo. I am sure it is a good game, but not the next best FPS

Branoic

Gamespot have their review up now - 91%

Regarding the textures - yes it has been mentioned in numerous reviews/previous and the textures and level design are not particularly impressive - textures bland and rooms and objects looking quite clunky.

BUT, every source says that the amazing particle effects more than makes up for this. I guess that at this point in time no one game can excel in everything. Doom 3 had fantastic lighting - but crap levels and boring gameplay. HL2 didn't do anything special in the lighting department, but had great gameplay, fantastic facial models and the most robust physics engine to date. FEAR seems to be shaping up to be nothing too special in the textures / environment department - but its got the most advanced opponent AI behaviour seen yet and stunning particle effects.

Now if only we could merge all three games into some sort of uber-monster.

Tusky

Im running the demo on a 9600 pro 256 mb amd athlon 3200 with a gig of ram and I have it running on high everything. Really high resolution too, no slowdown.

bizmark

black and white 2 is one of the worse games ever made honestly Peter Molyneux should be done for fraud fu*king pathological lieing as*hole.Of all the things he promised so much was left out from huge game making things like epic battles (300 v 300 is epic? what happened to the 5000 v 5000 battles peter?) and award wining ai (its a total joke the enemy is retarded and the animal is a fool) to small things like walls that could be made taller and thicker.

On top of that lots of things have been reduced from the first game like only being around 6 miracles and 3 creatures to pick from 4 if your unlucky enough to have payed extra for the special edition also there’s no skirmish mode so no real replayablity etc etc etc plus its very buggy overall the game is a MASSIVE disappointment.

Avoid it till it’s patched heavily or until Peter Molyneux pays you to play it.

Ri_Nollaig

bizmark wrote:

black and white 2 is one of the worse games ever made honestly Peter Molyneux should be done for fraud fu*king pathological lieing as*hole.Of all the things he promised so much was left out from huge game making things like epic battles (300 v 300 is epic? what happened to the 5000 v 5000 battles peter?) and award wining ai (its a total joke the enemy is retarded and the animal is a fool) to small things like walls that could be made taller and thicker.

On top of that lots of things have been reduced from the first game like only being around 6 miracles and 3 creatures to pick from 4 if your unlucky enough to have payed extra for the special edition also there’s no skirmish mode so no real replayablity etc etc etc plus its very buggy overall the game is a MASSIVE disappointment.

Avoid it till it’s patched heavily or until Peter Molyneux pays you to play it.

wow didnt think it wud b that bad....
u have played it right? im only going by reviws and was going to wait for atleast a demo or a reduced price to change my mind. just seems like a repeat of the first one, brillant idea but too many problems and annoying bugs, shame really.
still really really really hoping that the movies will actaully work

ShiverinEskimo

Tusky wrote:

Im running the demo on a 9600 pro 256 mb amd athlon 3200 with a gig of ram and I have it running on high everything. Really high resolution too, no slowdown.

By right that should mean I wont have probs - preordered it from play a week ago and its on its way now, should have it on wednesday or thursday..

bizmark

Ri_Nollaig wrote:

wow didnt think it wud b that bad....
u have played it right?

Course i never make a comment like above unless i have first hand experience but you know though what really pisses me off? the game screams potential you can just see how good and enjoyable the game could be if it wasn’t so buggy and broken which is very annoying no doubt i will have to shell out for an expansion pack after months of patching to get what i was duped into believing the game would be out of the box’s seems to be the current trend with pc games.

CombatCow

Was playing B&W2 with the 1.1 patch ( 100MB btw :eek: ) there for a few hours earlier, and i have to say it is mediocre at best tbh. The tutorial is soooo long and boring as fcuk! ... i know yah can skip it but then you fee like your missing out on learning the "apparant" new cool things you can do in it.

gfx are dam nice... but only get a fps of 17-20 @ 16x12

CC

feylya

I'm really enjoying B&W2. Graphics are running quite nicely on mine at 1024x768, everything on full on an AMD 64 3000+ and a 6600GT.

Gizzard

FEAR demo ran fine on my duel 7800 SLI cards, 3.6ghz duel core

Ciaran500

:rolleyes:

IceHawk

Yeah, I prefer B&W2 to the first one. It was way too hard in the first one to play as the good side, but now with the impressiveness stat, you can concentrate on building your city, because everything you do helps you win. A huge improvement over the first game imo. (And I really liked the first one)

koneko

F.E.A.R. rocks, tbh

jaggeh

B&W2 has its good and bad much like the name.

it is buggy, the framerate will randomly crash into single figures making the game unplayable so that you have to quit back to the menu screen and reload your game.

but apart from that, the game is very good. if a little easy.

the only pet peeves i have is the clipping on the monsters models, as your creature develops he will be unique but several areas are modeled badly and dont scale well (check the jaw on the wolf)

There may only be 6 miracles but there is 4 Epic miracles (that i know of) and they look fantastic. i crapped myself when i lost a 250 strong unit of swordsmen to the siren, luckily i had my creature there casting fire and he was able to raze the enemy town

i dont want to patch the game till ive beaten it as the patch is incompatible with savegames and it says on the B&W2 website that the patch is unsupported....... and most of it is balancing issues with the RTS side.

I have yet to play or even take any kind of look at FEAR, so ill reserve any statement on it.

ShiverinEskimo

Gizzard wrote:

FEAR demo ran fine on my duel 7800 SLI cards, 3.6ghz duel core

I'm shocked.

Retr0gamer

I've only played a small portion of FEAR tonight so all i can really say about is that it is ****ing brilliant.

Branoic

Yes - its goddamn amazing. I've played about 3 hours so far. The reviews and previews were not bullsh1tting about the scariness of the AI!

Some cool things I've noticed soldiers doing:

> Enemy soldier running on an elevated walkway. Easy pickings, methinks, I train my crosshair just in front of his path and open up. Instead of continueing to run into my bullets, he grabs the railing and leaps over it, falling to the ground below - where he then runs and hides and starts screaming "Sh1t!!"

> I have a soldier pinned down in an alcove in a narrow corridor. I reload my clip, and as I do so he breaks his cover and makes a run for it - dives to his belly and crawls out of the corridor through a broken grill.

> Last remaining soldier of a squad, have him pinned down behind some boxes and he's wounded. He's yelling that I've wiped out his whole squad and he's staying hidden - just lifting his arm up and firing around the room erratically. I toss a grenade behind his boxes. "Oh shi---" BOOM

> Then there's also been numerous instances of the behaviour talked about in reviews - soldiers diving through windows, pulling down shelves for cover, clearing computers off desks, trying to flank me and often succeeding.

Its stunning. In previous games things like all this would be scripted, but if I loaded up my quicksave after each of the events above, it would play out differently.

jones

Now thats a game i'd pay to play haha!!

Branoic wrote:

Gamespot have their review up now - 91%

Regarding the textures - yes it has been mentioned in numerous reviews/previous and the textures and level design are not particularly impressive - textures bland and rooms and objects looking quite clunky.

BUT, every source says that the amazing particle effects more than makes up for this. I guess that at this point in time no one game can excel in everything. Doom 3 had fantastic lighting - but crap levels and boring gameplay. HL2 didn't do anything special in the lighting department, but had great gameplay, fantastic facial models and the most robust physics engine to date. FEAR seems to be shaping up to be nothing too special in the textures / environment department - but its got the most advanced opponent AI behaviour seen yet and stunning particle effects.

Now if only we could merge all three games into some sort of uber-monster.

dent

PCZone gave Black & White 2 93%. There reviews generally live up to my expectations when I play the actual games so I'll defo give the demo a go.

Looking forward to playing FEAR,its defiantly on my to buy list.

bizmark

dent wrote:

PCZone gave Black & White 2 93%. There reviews generally live up to my expectations when I play the actual games so I'll defo give the demo a go.

.

I really wouldn’t buy black and white 2 its a terrible game no matter what pc zone or ign says read the official black and white 2 forum its wall to wall disappointment with a few fanboys desperately trying to defend the game.

dent

bizmark wrote:

I really wouldn’t buy black and white 2 its a terrible game no matter what pc zone or ign says read the official black and white 2 forum its wall to wall disappointment with a few fanboys desperately trying to defend the game.

I rarely buy games nowadays without playing the demo first. I'll stop by the forums too though

jaggeh

im not a fanboy of B&W i gave up on the last game after i beat it, it just got tedious at the end as i had so much power.

But i do like B&W2, and i wouldnt flat out tell people not to buy it or buy it.
give it a shot, you may like it, if you dont so what play another game.

never judge a game by its demo, some games have better demos than the finished product, some demos stink so much that it will turn you away from the fin ished game which might be a GEM.

madrab

just finished b&W2, bit of a let down but ahh well, i did enjoy it, (and i did just get fear)

i only just figured out how to link troops when i was killing the last of the enemy soldiers

Branoic

Just finished FEAR. Superb. There were quite a few plot points that were not resolved and stuff that didn't make an awful lot of sense - but the last 60 seconds of the game was absolutely fantastic and an amazing way to end.

]HaVoC[

I am currently enjoying B&W2 i liked the first one it was a good game but i really like the way you can build walls etc in this one quite easily and makes the towns look sweet!

I have had some problems already, keeps freezing maybe once a half hour for about minute :S dunno why but still nice game.

I really want to play fear everyone says it's brillaint! So i'll give it a go soon!

Canis Lupus

B&WII = same old thing.

Expended all my patience playing B&W, playing this new one just brings the old hatreds back. Pointless "game" imo.

Still have to get FEAR tho. Demo was great.

amp

Pc Format didn't think much of B&W 2 giving it 67%. I won't bother with it myself after finding it's predeccessor mind numbingly tedious. We're hungry wah! Feed us! GET OFF YOUR ASS AND GET YOUR OWN DAMNED FOOD!

Fear though. Oh yes, wantage.

rabbitinlights

F.E.A.R is bloody brilliant, It just gets better and better, pretty scary too nearly fell off my chair while going through an elevator shaft last night. Has to be played on the hardest setting though.

I just love popping around a corner and throwing a sticky grenade to some poor grunt and waiting till he runs towards his mate and then pressing the trigger!

Also the AI is sweet, you almost have to think like your playing CS as they flank quite well and wont come out into the open is they see you.

S.

BKtje

Am i the only one who was slightly disappointed with F.E.A.R after reading all the hype?

Played the game on the hardest setting and never really had a problem with any bit. Sure i died a few times but i was never really stuck.
Also i played the game as much as possible with the lights out at night. There were only two points really where i cacked myself. The two are:

Where your man suddenly is behind that box and knocks ya out and the other was where you encounter those invisible(most of the time) guys who do mellee damage for the first time

Now don't get me wrong, the AI was superb(better than superb infact) and the plot was half decent. Graphics were pretty top notch too (which i unfortunately find important) but there was just something missing. A little more variety would have been nice i guess. The enemies were basically the same the whole way through, with the same tactics. Sure every now and then you meet something new but then you kill it (using whatever means) and your back to 30-45mins of the old squad after squad, wading through enemies. I'm rambling a bit now but i think there was too much ammo and health packs in the game. I never really ran below full health packs available and never ever ran outta ammo(tho outta grenades etc a few times ). Would have been great to have been forced to go melee more often or think of a way to save ammo by getting more "bang for buck".

Overall its a very good game but it came just short of being a contender for greatness.
[/rant]

]HaVoC[

Just after uninstalling B&W2, it got so so so boring :mad: I mean there wasn't really anything great as the game progresses. I was hoping for some more variety etc but it just wasn't there.

I was enjoying it at the start with the new buildings and some more creature options but after a while it got boring! Although i got the chance to play F.E.A.R and what a game! It really has got an edge on most out there with some nice graphics and smart AI. I can see why people say its boring and repetitive but still its a brilliant game, if you haven't tried it yet give it a go. :cool:

jaggeh

im on the last level of B&W2 now, my tiger can cast all spells and ive started slapping him senseless to turn him into an evil warrior
I have the siren wonder, the others cost waaaay too much. i mean where the hell are you supposed to get 1 million tribute for the volcano?

But in all i enjoyed the game. (ive moved off it to play x3 fo a while)

Zillah

I managed to enjoy B&W2, but not very much. Its got a LOT of problems, and most reviews I've read annihilated it, and I found myself agreeing with almost everything they said.

PixelTrawler

compared to say Half Life 2 : The lost Coast does fear seem a little too demanding considering the graphics. Sure they are nice ( some lovely effects in fairness ) but it just seems way to hard on the system

Ive a decent machine too 3.6ghz, 2 gig ram and an x850xt pe. This is a machine that can throw around bf2, cod2 and hl2:tlc at 1600 res with no probs but fear is murder on it